Generally, in order to manage money, individuals, groups, businesses, governments and other account owners use a variety of financial accounts. Examples of financial accounts include, but are not limited to, investment accounts, savings accounts, checking accounts, retirement accounts, credit card accounts, and/or loans.
Different financial accounts generally have different attributes and accordingly are suitable for different purposes. For example, different financial accounts may have different limits, different policies, different fees, different interest rates, different payment dates, different balances, different fraud detection rules, different overdraft protection, different accessibility and a variety of other attribute differences. Accordingly, an account owner may distribute available funds over different financial accounts for different purposes.
For each financial transaction, an account owner is required to first select which financial account is suitable for the financial transaction and authorize an expense or deposit to the selected financial account. Each financial account may include different available balances and/or be associated with fraud detection rules that result in authorization or denial of the request for the financial transaction.
When a financial transaction is processed by a financial account with insufficient funds, an overdraft fee is generally charged to the account owner by the associated financial institution. In addition, a vendor requesting the financial transaction may charge a fee to the account owner for denial of the requested financial transaction. For example, most vendors generally charge a fee for a bounced check. Accordingly, even if the account owner has funds available in other financial accounts, the account owner may be charged fees for lacking funds in the selected financial account.